I used the search, Google and Youtube and found nothing. If this is a common question and I apologize.

I've got a RRA AR-15 with the standard plastic grip and I have a RRA rubber grip I want to replace it with. When I look down in the hollow grip of the plastic (installed) grip, instead of seeing a screw head like all my other AR's I see the threaded end of a bolt with a nut and a washer. Maybe this is standard but I've never seen it before. So I'm curious, if I use a deep socket and remove the nut is the bolt going to be locked into place? I can just see myself taking the nut off, the bolt being loose and there being no way of me fixing it without stripping the lower.

Is this normal? Thoughts?

Paid Advertisement

--

NeedMoreAmmo [Team Member]

1/21/2012 11:01:41 PM EDT

Are you sure you are not looking at the head of an allen screw?

Otherwise someone put a stud in there from the sound of it. Fix it in place with locktite blue if it loosens.

Dano523 [Moderator]

1/22/2012 9:52:27 AM EDT

Normal, no. And makes me wonder if someone stripped out the threads for the grip bolt then rigged the receiver with stud loctite'd to the channel and used a nut on the stud instead.

At this point, pull the nut, remove the pistol grip (while catching the selector spring out of the grip, and the small detent above the spring in the channel so you don't lose them), and take a good look at the now installed stud.

If you just want to reuse the stud and bolt, may be fine, but a better solution would be to either clean up the threads (1/4" -28 pitch) in the receiver is possible, or just install a Heli coil if the threads are beyond stripped out to stay with the standard pistol grip screw.

Again, you will need to make the call, and if the stud is loctite'd in, then you need to heat up the stud to transfer heat through it to the receiver threads to first break the loctite bond before removing the stud from the receiver (does not take a lot of heat, and you will smell a sweet smell as the loctite bond breaks down).

As for just increasing/threading the pistol grip channel in the receiver one side up if the threads are beyond gone, that is an option as well (just need to drill the grip bolt channel so the new bolt will fit through it, and you may get away with going to a 7mm tap, instead of increasing the receiver channel up to 5/16" threading (just need to look at the what is left in the channel threads, and determine if going a tad up with metric would work, or have to go up to the next Inch size threads instead.

Appleby [Member]

1/22/2012 10:29:48 AM EDT

Guy I really don't know what to say. I'm pretty embarrassed right now. I read your replies, grabbed my camera, a flashlight and opened up my safe. I was going to take a photo for y'all and then go ahead and try to remove the nut. When I got the light down in there I was in shock to find what I was really seeing was exactly what NeedMoreAmmo mentioned....I was seeing the head of the allen screw with a washer underneath it.

I guess I'm just getting old and my eyes were playing tricks on me in the low light. I've looked down in there multiple times on multiple occasions and every single time (including twice yesterday) I was convinced I was seeing a threaded bolt with a nut on it. I guess once my brain thought that is what I was seeing, it just kept telling me that every time I looked.

SO SORRY for the trouble, thanks for the replies, now I've just got to figure out where to get an allen wrench long enough to reach down in there.

Thanks

Appleby [Member]

1/22/2012 11:24:44 AM EDT

Ok I got it changed out but now I have a new problems. The selector spring sits just a tiny bit lower in the plastic RRA grip than the ergo RRA grip, thus putting more pressure on the selector detent. So now the selector is very hard to flip back and forth from safety to fire. I pulled the new grip off and slid the old back on and the selector works perfectly. It's def. the tiny bit extra that the spring is protruding from the grip. I may be a moron but I'm thinking about getting my drill and a tiny little bit and making the hole in the ergo grip a tiny amount deeper.....

Dano523 [Moderator]

1/22/2012 11:35:09 AM EDT

Yep, drop the correct sized drill bit down on the old grip spring channel, mark the drill bit at the top of the old grip channel with a sharpy marker, then by hand, drop and spin the drill bit down the new grip channel to hand drill it the same (using an drill may end up with the channel too deep).

There is always the option of just clipping the spring a wind or two, but with the new grip channel hand depth drilled correctlly, a factory spring will always be the correct length.

To add, when you do go to install the new grip, make sure that you have the grip and receiver channels lined up correctly so the spring is not getting pinched between the two.

Appleby [Member]

1/22/2012 11:54:50 AM EDT

Thanks for the advice! It worked perfectly. I found the right sized bit and drilled it out to match the plastic grip and it all works perfectly now.

Thanks again for the advice and help fellas. It's greatly appreciated.

sully [Industry Partner]

1/22/2012 7:07:16 PM EDT

We see lots of 3/16" Allen/Hex head screws that are used on the grips.